A night at the Opera

Those of you who know me will know that I am definitely not an opera fan. I don't go much on musicals that you need a plot synopsis to understand what is being screeched about. It isn't that I don't acknowledge the years of dedication that it takes to be able to sing that loudly & memorise all those words in Italian or German or what ever, I do. I just don't see the point is all. Everyone criticises Dylan for his lack of diction, but at least he sings in English & if you actually LISTEN to him, you can understand him. Herself on the other hand is an opera buff.. She loves the damn stuff. We have reached an accord where she is free to listen to it as long & as loud as she likes, so long as its while I'm not home. We have reached an accord where she does that, & I listen to some of my more eclectic music under the head phones, generally while she is watching Miami CSI or some other programme that I find particularly mind numbing. You see, the monotone delivery that American actors seem to affect at the moment bores me shitless, But thats a whole other blog post in itself.

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, our world renowned opera singer, has caused discord in the Cathouse. You see , I find her comments regarding Hayley Westenra's style of singing extremely offensive. Herself, on the other hand, apparently believes that KTK has a direct link to God & can do no wrong. For the record, Westenra's style of singing doesn't really appeal to me either. Given my druthers, I would rather listen to a bit of down & dirty Joplin, or the dulcet tones of Joan Baez, or even a bit of hard rocking Stevie Nix.

I rate KTK's comments about on a level with kicking a Labrador puppy. Westenra has that "cute " factor that has little old ladies dribbling over her left right & center. OK, so the old Dame may not particularly want to share a stage (read limelight) with her. Maybe she is scared that Westenra may get a better reception than her, I don't know. The whole deal smacks of a large meal of sour grapes & professional jealousy. I mean here's KTK with all these years of training & a huge overseas career, (remember all the denigratory comments re her NZ heritage?) versus a kid from the South Island that was discovered by a country & western singer & has proved to be a huge local success, selling heaps of music.

Dame Kiri is welcome to her opinions, as are we all, but under the circumstances, I think she would have done her public image a lot more good had she just quietly refused the concert without the gratuitous comments. Kind of ironic that the whole deal was rained off anyway. Even Herself, after seeing the shitstorm that the whole deal has created, is starting to grudgingly admit that Kiri has screwed up badly on this occasion. Now THAT really IS something...

Nice ladies & little dirt bags.

It's not often that I am sorely tempted towards physical violence towards children, but today I would have gladly made an exception. You see today, I had an afternoon run up to Coromandel. I had one of our better little trucks to take & the sea was an absolute picture. I had a stop to do at one of the oyster companies, & when I went in to see where they wanted their stuff, the nice Maori lady was shelling oysters. On making suitable appreciative noises, she proceeded to give me 2 or 3 still in the shell.. Bliss... So after the last two days of hell runs to Auckland, I was a very happy little camper. Even more so as she came out with a little pottle that contained about a dozen raw oysters. Very nice they was when I got home & had them to the accompaniment of lemon juice, black pepper & a cold beer... Herself is bracing herself & hoping that they don't all work. Anyway, they tasted good & all was well in my little world

That was right up to the point when i was exiting a service lane after another delivery, & this green Toyota king cab ute came round the corner ahead in front of me. "No problem really" thought I, as we both had plenty of room so all was cool. Right up to the point where this arrogant little shit aged about 10, glared at me out the window & flipped me the bird. Did I mention that the whole uteload belonged to our major & very vocal minority group? I think it is very sad that the Maori youth of today is being preprogrammed into a conditioning of hatred towards anyone with European colouring. I also found it very sad that time, social conditioning & the fact that 3 of his extremely large cuzzies were also in the ute prevented me from going after him & smashing his nose into a bloody pulp.

An Oldy but a goody

Got sent this one from my old mate Hawkeye. Its an oldy but a goody, so I thought I would share.




>
> HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT
>
> The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington
> chemistry mid term.
>
> The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it
> with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the
> pleasure of enjoying it as well :
>
> Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs
> heat)?
>
> Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas
> cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant
> .
> One student, however, wrote the following:
>
> First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need
> to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which
> they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets
> to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how
> many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that
> exist in the world today.
>
> Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their
> religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these
> religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can
> project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are,
> we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now,
> we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law
> states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the
> same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
>
> This gives two possibilities:
>
> 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter
> Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell
> breaks loose.
>
> 2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell,
> then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
>
> So which is it?
>
> If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year
> that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into
> account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be
> true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen
> over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it
> follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct
> ... leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being
> which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."
> THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+

I've had a good week

Monday, I did an early run to Hamilton, Tuesday I went to Whitianga, Wednesday was Whangamata, Thursday was Whitianga & Cooks Beach, & Friday was Coromandel. All this & I got paid for it as well. Saturday was unadmittedly a selfish day. I tore the manky old user unfriendly stereo out of Sherman & replaced it with one I bought second hand some time ago. I've been a little scared of this job as dammit, there are a lot of wires hanging out the back of new car radios.

But I managed it without blowing up or setting fire to Shermy & it works beautifully. I also took the CB set out of Herself's car & mounted that in Sherman as well. Another job I have been promising myself to do as well, but I couldn't do it until I replaced the stereo, as they both go in the same hole in the console. I put the original little cubby hole back in Herselfs car to fill the space. Now we are both happy. Me for obvious reasons & herself because she now has somewhere else in her car to shove essential crap. Never known anyone who carts as much essential crap round as her. I guess if you want to be pedantic about it, that could include me I guess, but hey....

Today, we went up to Auckland for Renee, my Grand daughters 6th birthday& had a lovely time. Here is a couple of pics of her & her cake.




Clever old sausage isn't she ?

Memories are made of this...

Got sent this link by a dear friend in the States. OK, so it is, of course, American oriented, but the music is great & if you an old fugitive hippy like me, its a groove...

http://objflicks.com/TakeMeBackToTheSixties.htm

Thanks a heap for the link Kathy...

The Chances of anything coming from Mars

Are about as likely as Hollywood doing a remake of a classic story & not butchering it badly. I came home last night after a 15 hour day at work, yes its absolute bloody madness there at the moment, to a wonderful tea. Herself had really excelled herself. Steak, homemade chips, sweetcorn, & beans picked freshly from our own garden, all helped along the way with 2 or 3 really cold beers.

Afterwards, while relaxing (blobbing out actually) on the sofa, I saw a leader for, "Tonight's Blockbuster Movie on 2, War of The Worlds." "Oooh," thinks I. "Lovely way to finish a stressy day seeing as I don't actually have to get up in the pre sparrow fart hours for work the next morning,"Gotta watch this." Turns out that its the Tom Cruise "What if" version... What if we shift the whole story to the US & modernise it. This means we don't have to spend big bucks on sets, & lets make TC an estranged crane driver with two kids to a remarried ex wife, Blardy blardy blah...

Dammit, I may be old fashioned, but H G got the story right when he wrote it. The original worked then , & it still works now. Ok, so I knew what was coming, because I had already wasted money going to see it on the big screen, but that was before I went to see Jeff Wayne's musical version. Now there was a version that ROCKED, but I think we have already been there . I guess I'm spoiled now forever.... Sighhhhhhh.